Catanzaro v. MDOC et al

Filing 190

OPINION and ORDER denying 179 MOTION for Sanctions against Michigan Department of Corrections for Spoliation. Signed by Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen. (JCur)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
MATTHEW CATANZARO,
Case No. 08-11173
Plaintiff,

District Judge Thomas L. Ludington

v.

Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen

MICHIGAN DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS,
et.al.,
Defendants.
/
OPINION AND ORDER
Before the Court is Plaintiff’s Motion for Spoliation Sanctions Against Defendant
Michigan Department of Corrections [Doc. #179]. For the reasons discussed below, the
motion will be DENIED.
I.

BACKGROUND

In his complaint, Plaintiff alleges that on August 29, 2007, Defendant Kleinhans, a
maintenance worker, came within three inches of hitting him with a motorized cart.
Complaint, ¶¶ 15-16. Plaintiff states that he “jumped to the side of the walk which
caused extreme pain to his back just before he would of (sic) been hit.” Id. ¶ 16.
Catanzaro alleges that when he asked Kleinhans if he was going to hit him with the cart,
Kleinhans answered, “Damn right you dumb motherfucker, get the fuck out of the way
you stupid son-of-a-bitch.” Id. ¶ 17.
On October 20, 2011, Plaintiff submitted a document request to Defendant
Michigan Department of Corrections (“MDOC”) requesting video recordings or video
camera documentation of the August 29, 2007 incident. The MDOC responded that “upon
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information and belief, no such video exists.” Plaintiff now contends that he is entitled to
spoliation sanctions because of the MDOC’s destruction of the video recordings.
Specifically, he seeks a mandatory adverse inference instruction.
II.

LEGAL PRINCIPLES RE: SPOLIATION

“[I]t is within a district court's inherent power to exercise broad discretion in
imposing sanctions based on spoliated evidence.” Adkins v. Wolever, 554 F.3d 650, 653
(6th Cir. 2009). In Adkins, the Sixth Circuit held that spoliation sanctions are governed by
federal law, and serve both a punitive and a fairness purpose:
“As our sister circuits have recognized, a proper spoliation sanction should
serve both fairness and punitive functions. See Vodusek v. Bayliner Marine
Corp., 71 F.3d 148, 156 (4th Cir.1995) (observing that a proper sanction
will serve the ‘purpose[s] of leveling the evidentiary playing field and ...
sanctioning the improper conduct’). Because failures to produce relevant
evidence fall ‘along a continuum of fault-ranging from innocence through
the degrees of negligence to intentionality,’ Welsh, 844 F.2d at 1246, the
severity of a sanction may, depending on the circumstances of the case,
correspond to the party's fault. Thus, a district court could impose many
different kinds of sanctions for spoliated evidence, including dismissing a
case, granting summary judgment, or instructing a jury that it may infer a
fact based on lost or destroyed evidence. Vodusek, 71 F.3d at 156.” Id. at
652-53.
The party “seeking an adverse inference instruction based on the destruction of
evidence must establish (1) that the party having control over the evidence had an
obligation to preserve it at the time it was destroyed; (2) that the records were destroyed
‘with a culpable state of mind’; and (3) that the destroyed evidence was ‘relevant’ to the
party’s claim or defense such that a reasonable trier of fact could find that it would
support the claim or defense.” Residential Funding Corp. v. Degeorge Fin. Corp., 306
F.3d 99, 107 (2d Cir. 2002), quoted in Forest Laboratories, Inc. v. Caraco
Pharmaceutical Laboratories, Ltd., 2009 WL 998402 (E.D. Mich. 2009).

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III.

DISCUSSION

Plaintiff specifically seeks spoliation sanctions, in the form of an adverse inference
instruction, against the MDOC. However, on November 19, 2009, the MDOC was
dismissed as a Defendant. See Doc. #140. Therefore, the Plaintiff’s request must be
denied as moot.
Moreover, to the extent that Plaintiff seeks a vicarious adverse inference
instruction against remaining Defendant Kleinhans, that request must be denied because
Kleinhans simply had no control over the preservation of the video recording. Again, it
must be shown that “that the party having control over the evidence had an obligation to
preserve it at the time it was destroyed.” Residential Funding Corp., supra at 107
(emphasis added). Kleinhans’ affidavit, submitted as Exhibit K to the response to this
motion [Doc. #184], states that he is employed by the MDOC as a licensed refrigeration
mechanic. Kleinhans Affidavit, ¶ 3. He states that he was aware that the facility’s camera
recording equipment was somewhere near the Control Center, but he did not know
exactly where. He recalled that he had access to two rooms “with equipment that could
have been the camera recording system.” Id. ¶ 7. He further states, at ¶ 9:
“I had a key to the rooms, but I did not know what kind of equipment wsa
stored in the rooms. I did not have access to, nor did I try to access, any of
the video equipment in the two rooms. I had no authorization to and I did
not know how to access any of the images that could have been stored in
the video equipment.”
Finally, Kleinhans states, at ¶ 10, “Access to and control of the recorded video in
the camera recording system did not fall within my duties as a licensed refrigeration
mechanic. I was the fix it guy, not the video guy.”
In Adkins, supra at 653, the Sixth Circuit remanded to the district court to
reconsider its denial of spoliation sanctions, with instructions to apply federal law rather
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than state law. However, the Sixth Circuit expressed agreement with the Defendant
correction officer’s argument that he should not be subject to spoliation sanctions “if, as
he suggests, the preservation of relevant evidence was entirely beyond his control.” See
also Jennings v. Bradley, 419 Fed.Appx. 594, 599-600, 2011 WL 1364063, *4 (6th Cir.
2011) (affirming denial of adverse inference instruction where plaintiff “presented no
evidence that Bradley had any control over the videotape or duty to preserve it”).
Because Defendant Kleinhans clearly had not control over the video recordings, I
am well within my discretion in denying an adverse inference instruction against him.1
IV.

CONCLUSION

Accordingly, Plaintiff’s Motion for Spoliation Sanctions Against Defendant
Michigan Department of Corrections [Doc. #179] is DENIED.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
s/ R. Steven Whalen
R. STEVEN WHALEN
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
Date: September 5, 2012
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
The undersigned certifies that the foregoing document was served upon counsel of record via the Court's
ECF System to their respective email addresses or First Class U.S. mail disclosed on the Notice of
Electronic Filing on September 5, 2012.
s/Johnetta M. Curry-Williams
Case Manager

1

Because Kleinhans had no control over the video recording, and because the
MDOC is no longer a Defendant, it is not necessary to discuss Kleinhans’ additional
argument that there was no duty to preserve the recording beyond the 35-day period when
recordings are routinely erased.
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